Explore South Africa's winelands

The winelands of South Africa are some of the most breathtakingly beautiful in the world. Many of the South African wine routes are within an hour or less easy driving distance from Cape Town.

Others will take visitors further afield, through constantly changing and spectacular landscapes. Cape Town and the surrounding South African winelands combine stunning beaches, and aqua-marine oceans, with a backdrop of vast mountain ranges and clear blue skies.

Travel to the winelands of South Africa

British Airways flies direct to Cape Town, South African Airways and Virgin Atlantic also fly from the UK to Cape Town via Johannesburg. The flight lasts around 11.5 hours and, because there is only one or two hours time difference between the UK and Cape Town, there's no jet lag to recover from.

Hiring a car is one of the best ways to travel around the South African winelands, making it easy to visit a number of different wine producers and wine regions and explore the surrounding areas. If you are planning a day wine tasting, consider taking a private wine tasting tour, to ensure that you can relax and enjoy all the delicious South African wines without having to worry about driving. Many of the wine estates have superb restaurants and accommodation too.

South African winelands activities

For the adventurous traveller South Africa offers a myriad of unforgettable experiences from shark cage diving and quad biking to horse riding in the vineyards, there's plenty to keep you on the edge of your seat.

For nature lovers, the South African wine regions are situated in the Cape Floral Kingdom, a biodiversity hot spot and home to more than 10,000 plant species, that's more than in the whole of the northern hemisphere. Many wine estates offer walking trails around the farms, where visitors can immerse themselves in the natural beauty of the surroundings before enjoying a refreshing glass of one of South Africa's excellent white wines.

If all the adventure sounds exhausting there are plenty of world-class hotels and spas to relax in and, of course, South Africa's famed cuisine and wines can be enjoyed in the many spectacular restaurants.

Wine routes in South Africa

All the wine routes in South Africa have individual websites packed with information on visiting the regions. Simply select the wine route you'd like to explore to find out more about what awaits you on your South African adventure.

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Last year I caught the winemaking bug. I was invited out to spend time in the cellars of four of the leading producers in Elgin, South Africa's coolest-climate wine region, which is currently a bit of a hotspot. In particular, Elgin is turning out some very fine Chardonnay. The brief experience of being in these cellars meant that when Peter-Allan Finlayson (of Crystallum and Gabrielskloof) invited me to spend some time at his place during vintage, I immediately cleared some time in my diary, and booked flights.

I fell in love with South Africa and the wines a few years ago. The recent MasterChef UK final took me right back to a holiday I had there. They went to the same Game Reserve that we stayed at and we also went to Reuben Riffel's restaurant in Franschhoek the night before my friends wedding - it was great to see Reuben as a guest judge too! Watching that episode seemed like the perfect excuse to open this beautiful bottle of Semillon from Boekenhoutskloof. What a delicious wine!